1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a cartridge and a printing material supply system including the cartridge and a printing apparatus.
2. Related Art
Latest cartridges generally have a circuit board with information regarding printing material (e.g., information on an remaining amount of printing material). For attachment of this cartridge to a printing apparatus, the circuit board on the cartridge is electrically connected with the printing apparatus through contact of cartridge-side terminals with terminals on the printing apparatus. With size reduction of the terminals, it is of great importance to properly attach the cartridge at a designed attachment position.
Various mechanisms have been proposed to removably attach the cartridge to a cartridge mounting structure of the printing apparatus. For example, JP 2007-230249 (PTL1) and JP 2005-022345 (PTL2) describe a mechanism for attachment of the cartridge to the cartridge mounting structure, wherein a lever with a first locking element is formed integrally with one side face of the cartridge, a second locking element is provided on the other side face of the cartridge opposite to one side face with the first locking element, and the first locking element and the second locking element of the cartridge are respectively locked by the cartridge mounting structure.
JP2002-019142 (PTL3) describes another mechanism for attachment of the cartridge to the cartridge mounting structure, wherein a first locking element and a second locking element are provided on two side faces of the cartridge opposite to each other, a lever to be engaged with the first locking element is formed integrally with the cartridge mounting structure, and the first locking element and the second locking element of the cartridge are respectively locked by the cartridge mounting structure.
In the proposed mechanism described in PTL1, in the attached state of the cartridge to the cartridge mounting structure, the repulsive force applied from the printing material supply tube of the cartridge mounting structure to the printing material supply port of the cartridge or the pressing force applied by the spring contact of the cartridge mounting structure acts in the direction of detaching the cartridge from the cartridge mounting structure. Similarly, the repulsive force of the spring or the seal member provided on the printing material supply port in the proposed mechanism described in PTL2 or the repulsive force of the spring provided in the vicinity of the printing material supply tube in the proposed mechanism described in PTL3 acts in the direction of detaching the cartridge from the cartridge mounting structure. The first locking element and the second locking element serve to interfere with such forces in any of the mechanisms described in PTL1 to PTL3.